Younger Siblings
by RenaLanford
Summary: When Carver struggles with his purpose in the Wardens he gets encouraged by a very unique stranger.


Younger Siblings [Dragon Age ficlet]

Carver was the last one in the training hall, his broadsword clutched in both of his hands, while he tried to work on his strikes. He knew they were still way too imprecise, way too random. A blow of him could sometimes stun an enemy…and sometimes it could give the same enemy a chance to kill him. Adrian wasn't there to protect him. He had to manage without his older brother. A thing that had seemed so wonderful before he went to the Deep Raods. Right now he had to admit that he missed his family.

An almost silent hiss caught his attention. He had felt a cold blow of air against his cheeks and looking at the doll of straw on which he had practised he realized an arrow that stuck into its knee. He turned around to see the wanderer standing near the door, a bow in her hands. Next to her sat the mabari that always followed her around. She had arrived just yesterday and the only person she had talked to was Stroud.

"You aren't that bad actually, young man." Her voice was now clear and her lips curled into a mocking smile.

Carver rolled his eyes. He didn't understand why she was that important. She was a Warden just like him, wearing the same type of armour just like him and was probably around the same age. Nothing could have made them different.

"I never said I was bad."

She shrugged and walked up to the doll, removing the arrow. "But the way you train indicates that you think of yourself as not good enough. It doesn't take a mage to read your mind."

Well someone thought she was really important. But he didn't.

"So what? Is it a bad thing that I try to improve?", he asked cockily and was surprised when her facial expression softened. She seemed older now.

"It is a bad thing to forget all the rest around you. I've seen you being all secluded from the others and it seems to be your choice.

However, the Wardens don't work alone."

Gosh, she wasn't really giving him a speech, wasn't she? He didn't need another person that told him how to behave and how to walk around. He wasn't some twelve year old farmer's boy that didn't know when to shut his mouth.

_Okay, sometimes he behaved like one. But she could never know that._

"By the way you roll your eyes I assume you have heard this speech more than enough. Let me guess.", she walked back and nodded at her mabari war hound that sat down to the ground immediately. "You have an older sibling."

"How do you know that?", he asked in a more aggressive tone than he had intended. He didn't want to talk about Adrian. It made him realize more what he missed. What he could never have again. And it made him angry again, that he was now stuck here.

"I'm a younger sister. I can sympathize.", she replied and drew her bow. "You never seem to be the best, your brother or sister always does better. They get to do things first, they get all the appreciation and glory, they seem to be best at everything.

And while you somehow begin to admire them at the same time you begin to ask yourself: Why him and not me?"

He gulped, realizing that she was right. This time she hit the head.

"However…now you can do anything. And in your head this seems to be improving your art of sword fighting. But, you think you have to do this alone."

He watched her, hitting the head again with the next arrow she shot.

"There seems to be no one that looks out for you. Especially not in the Wardens.", she hit the head a third time and seemed to be satisfied with it, because she began to gather her arrows again.

"Why are you telling me this?", he asked, half-curios and half-annoyed. "You have arrived just yesterday and by the few things you brought with you I assume you intend to leave soon. Why bother and tell me all of this?"

She frowned as if she hadn't thought about that. Then, she turned to him and gave him a confident smile. "Because King Maric would have never been King without Loghain and Rowan. Because the Hero of Ferelden would have never stopped the blight all by herself.

And because I'm a younger sister.

I can sympathize."

He returned the smirk she gave him and continued his practice as if her words hadn't touched him. She left the training room shortly after one of the Wardens had told her that Stroud was waiting in his room for her. However, he also wrote a letter to his brother.

The letter was neither friendly nor polite…but he wrote it.


End file.
